Grist For The Mills

BY JEFF RAYMOND

Thursday

May 24, 2018 at 12:01 AM

If you have spent any time on Facebook in the last year or two, chances are you fall into one of two camps: either you have friends who have successfully navigated an escape room and posted their photos, or you have successfully navigated an escape room and have posted your own photos about the experience.

Locally, if you have any escape room experience on either side, it is likely through Live Action Escapes located in Worcester. What you may not know is that it is the brainchild of a Millbury resident who started out building escape rooms in his basement for fun and has grown that idea into a concept that will take over the entire Millbury downtown this weekend.

First, if you do not know what an escape room is, some background is in order. Escape rooms are a very trendy activity at present, where you and a group of people enter a locked area and search for clues to find your way out. It requires teamwork and outside the-box thinking to solve, and creative minds to make a compelling room that people want to visit without making it too difficult to solve.

Mike Paquin has been running Live Action Escapes for a few years out of an office building in central Worcester. A resident of Millbury for a number of years now, his kids also live in Millbury and he considers the town "the only choice for us."

A master carpenter by trade, Paquin has been fascinated by escape rooms for some time. He would play escape room games on his phone and developed some escape rooms in his basement during holidays for his kids.

The carpentry trade, however, was doing a number on Paquin. As he put it, "I'm getting older and hurting myself more," so his talent for escape rooms comes from a creative side, as well as wanting to do something a little less labor-intensive with his skill set.

Paquin's escape rooms try to be "Disney quality" in terms of design. A current room, which involves a starship escape and landing, is described by Paquin as "the closest thing to a starship for having not been on a starship."

Another recent game involved a Victorian-style apartment, and Paquin was happy to transport gamers from an office building in Worcester to an old-style apartment to play the game. Each session is actually a multi-room experience, so they take a while to set up and get going, but if social media responses are any indication, the effort is paying off.

On Saturday, May 26, the next step in Mike Paquin's ambitious agenda lands with "Quest for the Golden Keys," which is a town-wide scavenger hunt/escape room experience. This is a literal first for Paquin, who was inspired in part due to corporate clients with hundreds of people wanting to try his escape rooms as a sort of event but without an outlet to serve them. The medieval-themed hunt is using a series of strategic locations in the center that implement the history of the town and is designed to get people in town to explore areas of downtown that they may not have visited or know much about.

While this is the first Live Action Escapes foray into the outdoors, Paquin has the town's interests in mind – he attempted to get some involvement from the local historical society, and part of the proceeds from "Quest for the Golden Keys," which enjoys sponsorships from a variety of local businesses, will be going to Millbury school organizations.

"I have kids in the system," Paquin says. "I know what they need."

Paquin's interests do not end at the school system, either. As escape rooms are rotated out, the crew takes a week to convert them into boxes that are then donated to local libraries to run as portable escape room events free of charge. Both Millbury's and Sutton's libraries have benefited from this donation and feedback has been positive so far, and Paquin hopes to expand the program in the future.

I asked Paquin how he felt about the whole experience so far, and he was very clear: "It's fun!"

The passion in his voice as he talks about the process and about his newfound path is undeniable, and he has nothing but positive things to say about his escape room journey up to now.

"The business side is stressful," he admits, but "the work is fun, and the creative side is amazing!"

He noted that there have been growing pains from chasing press to overall outreach to customers and local groups alike, but things like the library and the big town-wide event help, and he will be seeking out other events like "Quest for the Golden Keys" to connect with more towns and more people in the future, not to mention capture some of those corporate clients hungry for a different form of team-building.

I know plenty of people who speak highly of their local escape room experience, and learning that it is the creation of a Millbury resident who is not only eager to leave his mark on the local creative community but also to give back to the town he loves, makes it that much more interesting to me. I look forward to seeing how the town responds to "Quest for the Golden Keys," and what the future brings for the Paquin family.

Jeff Raymond is a 30-plus-year resident of Millbury. Contact him at jraymond.msc@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffinmillbury for more links and information from this column.

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